How did you get into breaking?
It started in 1998 with my brother Oscar (Da Realness) and George (Paranoia who was my boyfriend at the time). One of our childhood friends and the originator of our crew, Elvis (Elastic Fantastic) was telling us one day that he was practicing some old school dance and we were like “what? which one? show us!” He started to pop and break and my brother and I remembered seeing our uncle breaking as a teenager. At the time I was three or four years old and my brother was about five or six. It brought back a lot of memories of us dancing with him. My uncle passed away young, around 18, so those were some of the last memories I had of him. When we saw Fantastic dancing like that we were excited, especially my brother. He was the one that really wanted to get into it and Fantastic was like “ok, well let me see if your serious.” So he taught my brother a few steps. As him and Paranoia were learning I would watch them and the Rocksteady videos they brought.
Who were your teachers?
When I decided that I wanted to learn breaking my brother started teaching me on the low. After they finished practice, when everybody left, he was like “you wanna learn something?” and he would teach me. My brother taught me the six step, a shuffle, and a freeze and one day when everyone was cyphering in the basement, my brother and Josh were like “Yaya, show them your thing” and I was like “shut up I don’t break.” “Yea you do stop frontin” they said. I sucked my teeth and I went in the middle and got down. Paranoia said “oh shit! you learned how to break?” and I was like “yea! I told you I wanted to learn.” After that he promised he would train me and teach me everything he knew. He said “your gonna learn the hard way I'm not gonna go easy on you.” The first lesson was in front of the house on the concrete. We were there from the afternoon until mad late at night. He taught me the six step his way and at the end of the day I had cuts and calluses on my hands but I had it.
The goal was to be clean but fast because not many girls had speed in their footwork and I wanted to break like one of the guys. After that I was accepted to the group and we became a team. Always together always practicing me, Paranoia, Real and Elvis.
I never had any other teachers besides Real and Paranoia. Paranoia had setup this rule ‘“If you want me to teach you I don't want you learning from nobody but me.” The way I saw it there were so few Bgirls if you had a crew you learn from them. Back then you wanted your crew to have its own unified style. When you look at the Domestic Apes we had threads, body rolls, traditional style that was not so traditional. It came from my brother going to Sudos and 88 Hip Hop with Josh and then coming back and showing us the things that helped make us different.
...It changed what I thought Breaking was. We didn’t have to have traditional Rocksteady style. It could be a mix, a fusion and we were really influenced by that
Did you do other styles of dance?
I was very influenced by House dancers in the clubs. There were House dancers that were Bboys and Bboys that were House dancers. You can’t look at Tony Bones and say that he wasn't a Bboy. Manny (Wild Child) is a dope Bboy but I also remember Manny in the House scene and he would dance his ass off. Tony Bones, Wild Child, Cyclone, all those Bboys they were also in the House scene. It changed what I thought Breaking was. We didn’t have to have traditional Rocksteady style. It could be a mix, a fusion and we were really influenced by that because we liked to see the evolution of the dance. We were like “alright those are boys and those are house dancers. I don’t wanna look totally like that because I like original Bboy flava but I dig what your doing. I like that step, and I might just incorporate that little thing.” That’s what the dance scene in New York is about. To really be a dancer in New York you gotta go to these scenes and see how other styles can help you evolve your dance. Just to look and experience different styles, fed into our breaking. It inspired something, and that’s what was so dope.
Who were some of your influences?
Fantastic would go through footage and bring it to us and we got our hands onto some good freakin footage. We kept rewinding and fast forwarding old school tapes of Legz, Ken Swift, Easy Rock, Honey Rockwell and Asia One. We also watched Beat Street and we would analyze the videos and try to do the moves as the video played. Later on as I travelled around I was found inspiration in Style Elements Crew. They inspired me to incorporate threads and Poe One had flava, I really liked his style. Going to Cali made me realize that my breaking didn’t have to look one way and I didn't have to be stuck in this box. As long as I stuck to my fundamentals I could do whatever! that mentality had the most influence in my style of breaking.
There were so many possibilities for shit could go down but it didn’t! Because we were all there for one thing, Breaking! and that amazed me that Hip Hop is peaceful.
Are there any moments or events that stood out to you?
Bboy Summit was definitely mind blowing and so inspiring. This was bigger than anything I had every experienced. We were in a room with what felt like thousands of kids in that gym. It was the first time I had gone to an event like that and back then Asia had goody bags for each person with a Bboy Summit t-shirt and a badge with stickers. The scene is small in New York but back then it was smaller, so to go to an gym filled with that many Bboys and Bgirls was incredible. There were International dancers too that didn't even speak english. It made us want to keep traveling and meet new people. Also, in New York the Bloods and Crips shit was real. Being at an event with so many kids, There were so many possibilities for something to go down but it didn’t! Because we were all there for one thing, Breaking! and that amazed me that Hip Hop is peaceful.
On battling women.
After Bboy Summit 2000 I really wanted to represent my city because I saw how many people came from different countries and different states and it made me want to compete.
Every time I got down, I felt good when I got up and people asked me who I was and where was I from. I would always say “I'm from New York” and it stuck with me that I always had to represent my city. I didn't even want to compete in my city because I didn’t want to go up against the girls in my city. I didn’t think about battling Bgirls. I wanted to beat the dudes and I wanted to smoke them so bad that he was like “dam I got beat by a girl.” A lot of the boys at the time, they tried to pit a lot of girls against each other and I almost lost one of my best friends because of it. Your crew expected you to go up against the girl from another crew when you went to battle. But why did I have to battle my friend? The crew would tell me that if went up against a guy then the round wouldn't even out. I wanted to show that I could smoke the guys and thats what fueled me. It felt like more of an accomplishment to beat a Bboy.
Which Bgirls stood out to you in the scene?
Real and Para would come back from 88 Hip Hop talking about this girl breaking like a beast. Power moves like a dude and they were talking about Rokafella. They told me stories about how she would smoke any guy and I wanted to see her. Rok and Miss Twist were the first Bgirls I saw doing power like the guys. I remember seeing Miss Twist for the first time doing flares. Her and Rok were hardcore. The first girls I saw learning were my friends Lily and Bonnie (BongoRoc). Later on I met Tara, Renegade, Melissa and Meghan who used to practice in the L.E.S. At one point Beta was a big influence. We were the same age but she had been breaking longer than me. When I saw footage of Pro am 99’ it was the first time I saw her and she stood out to me. Her flow and footwork were what drew me. Abby had the biggest impact on me. When we first started battling together, Paranoia and Elmo called us the hurricane. We were inseparable, always battling together even before she became Domestic Apes. She took me under her wing and treated me like a little sister, always pushing me to get better and to train hard.
